“The Florida Project,” “Lady Bird,” “Get Out,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “The Rider” have been nominated as the best independent films of 2017 at the Film Independent Spirit Awards, Film Independent announced on Tuesday.

Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name” received the most nominations, six, followed by “Get Out” and “Good Time” with five and “Lady Bird” and “The Rider” with four.

In true Spirit Awards fashion, the acting nominations also went to several performers whose films were largely under the radar of other awards voters: Regina Williams for”Life and nothing more,” Harris Dickinson for “Beach Rats,” Nnamdi Asomugha for “Crown Heights” and Shinobu Terajima for “Oh Lucy!”

“Mudbound” received the Robert Altman Award, which goes to a film’ director, casting director and ensemble cast.

Best director nominations went to Guadagnino, Sean Baker for “The Florida Project,” the Safdie brothers for “Good Time,” Jonas Carpignano for “A Ciambra” and Chloe Zhao for “The Rider,” an indie western that was probably the biggest surprise among the nominations.

Nominees in the Best First Feature category were “Columbus,” “Ingrid Goes West,” “Menashe,” “Oh Lucy!” and “Patti Cake$.”

To qualify for the Spirit Awards, a film must meet a variety of criteria, including a budget of less than $20 million and “significant American content,” or U.S. citizens or permanent residents in two of the three creative positions of director, writer and producer. (While “Three Billboards” was written and directed by the Irish-British Martin McDonagh, the fact that it was set and filmed in the U.S. was enough to qualify it.)

Nominations are chosen by a variety of nominating committees, a process that lends itself to surprises and offbeat choices more than most other awards shows.

Final voting is now in the hands of the members of Film Independent, an organization made up both of film professionals and movie fans who pay the annual membership fee.

The Spirit Awards have gotten closer to the Academy Awards in recent years, with the last four Best Feature winners, and five of the last six, going on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. (In the previous 26 years, that had only happened once.)

Since the Oscars expanded to more than five Best Picture nominees in 2009, there has never been a year in which at least one of the Spirit nominees did not also receive an Oscar nomination in the top category, with a high of four matches in 2010 and again in 2014. In an average year, two of the Spirit nominees will become Oscar Best Picture nominees.

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. (Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.)
“Dayveon”
“A Ghost Story”
“Life and nothing more”
“Most Beautiful Island”
“The Transfiguration”

Steve Pond, awards editor at TheWrap, is also author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show. He has been covering entertainment for more than two decades, and is the industry's most knowledgeable Academy Awards prognosticator.